Hunting Down stock Killers. 



291 



of production of live stock and of the meat that goes upon 

 the family table. 



Losses of live stock from ravages of predatory animals are 

 among the most spectacular and exasperating of those suf- 

 fered by the stockman. Disease may decimate his flocks and 

 herds, or drought or wintry storms mux result in the starva- 

 tion or death of numbers of valuable animals. Xone of these 

 disasters, however, arouses such resentment and determina- 

 tion to settle the score as arises in the heart of the ranchman 

 when wolves or other stock destroyers enter corrals or oper- 

 ate on the open range, maiming and killing his cattle or 

 other domestic stock. 



The average destruction by these animals is estimated to 

 be for each wolf and mountain lion about $1,000 worth of 

 live stock annually ; each coyote and bobcat, $50 worth ; and 

 each stock-killing bear $500 worth. Statistics may leave the 

 stockman unmoved and uninterested, but a vivid, lasting im- 

 pression is made when he finds one of his own valuable steers 

 pulled down by a wolf, one of his colts struck down by a 

 mountain lion, the scattered carcasses of several of his sheep 

 killed by coyotes for sheer lust of killing, or a valuable cow 

 maimed or with skull crushed by a blow from the powerful 

 paw of a grizzly. 



Since the beginning the hand of the stockman has been 

 raised against predatory animals; and every known means at 

 his disposal — guards, guns, traps, poisons, bounties, and in- 

 closures — have been employed to secure the protection of his 

 flocks or herds from their depredations. Individual efforts 

 have been supplemented of late years b} r organized endeavor 

 through stockmen's associations and the securing of State 

 and county legislation. 



The Government Takes a Hand. 



Careful field studies of the abundance, habits, and relation- 

 ship of predatory animals to the live-stock industry had been 

 made by the Biological Survey of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture for many years. Men with keen insight 

 into animal psychology and the ways and motives of wild 

 creatures had sought out improved methods of luring them 

 to destruction when their presence was detrimental to the 

 live-stock business. The first demonstrations and experi- 

 ments for the control of wolves and coyotes were conducted 



